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Moline, Illinois has a lovely airport. It’s small, maybe twelve gates, but it has some nice comfy chairs, and an area of cubicles with plug-ins for your electronics. There are some very nice people there that helped my husband, Jon, and I, on Monday when United Airlines lost us.
Yep, you read that last part right. United Airlines lost us, not our luggage, but us. We got off the plane from Denver and there was nothing in our paperwork, or in the computer, that said we should have been in Moline. So, according to the airline we weren’t there. Yes, we were standing talking to the nice gate agents, so we were obviously there, but the computer said we weren’t, or rather, said we should have been in Chicago and there was no mention of the stop in Moline.
How did United Airline lose us? I’m not really sure, but I can tell you how we got to Moline.
Sunday night was our original departure, but the direct flight to St. Louis was cancelled, because the crew timed out. What does it mean when a crew times out? That they’ve flown too many hours and now legally can’t fly again until they’ve had some rest. The airline did try to find a crew to replace them, but had no luck. Jon actually got notification on his phone that the flight was cancelled, before they announced it at the gate. We learned later from several employees that the new computer system often gave information to the customers before letting the agents know that flights were cancelled. We would be hearing complaints about the new computer system, a lot in the next twenty-four hours.
There were no more flights to St. Louis that night anywhere, on any airline.
United did put our entire flight up at the Double Tree, and we were given food vouchers for forty dollars. We were told to give up on getting our luggage for the overnight stay, because it would take at least two hours to get it. Jon and I wanted our luggage so we found plug ins for the electronics and sat down to wait. A lot of the people from our flight decided the same thing. While we waited for the luggage we texted and called trying to find someone to take care of our daughter, Trinity, for Monday. Normally, Jon’s family would pitch hit, but his parents are having a well-deserved second honeymoon, so we got hold of my sister, Chica, and she was able to rearrange work to pick Trinity up from school. She was with her father for the weekend, and he was dropping her at school, but nothing after that. We did finally get our luggage and most of the flight went out to grab the shuttle to the Double Tree.
Thanks to everyone at the Double Tree that made the night and the breakfast next morning as pleasant as possible.
Next morning and we’re back at the airport. Now the real fun begins, as we talk to the ticket agent, Peggy. She seemed confused by why we were there, and what we wanted. We’d been first class on the cancelled flight, but the only flight they could get us on Monday was economy, so the computer wanted us to pay for checking the bags, which you don’t have to do in first class. Peggy called over another agent trying to figure out how to convince the new computer system to stop trying to be so efficient and be a little bit more user friendly. Finally, we got our boarding passes. I noticed a problem, so I said, “There’s no mention of Moline on any of this, shouldn’t the boarding passes, or something, say Moline since we’re going there next?”
Peggy said, “No, you’re fine.” There was more reassurance from both her, and the other agent helping her. They made several more mentions of the new computer system and how confusing it was. We’d gotten to the airport with over two hours before the flight, by the time we finished talking to Peggy and her friend, we barely made our flight.
But we did make it, and we were happy to be on our way home. Except that home was through Moline. The new computer system knew exactly where our luggage was, but we, we weren’t supposed to be there. The computer either kept thinking we wanted to go back to Denver, or were already in Chicago. In fact the very nice gate agents Barry and Becky were puzzled why we weren’t on the Chicago flight leaving then since there were two seats left. Peggy had assured us that there were no seats on any Chicago flight earlier than early evening flight we were scheduled on. But the new computer system wouldn’t let Becky, or Barry, change our flight time. We watched the noon flight to Chicago take off, and waited for someone to figure out if we were waiting for nearly four hours in Moline, or if there were other options.
The maddening thing was that we were closer to home in Moline than we would be in Chicago. We could have driven home faster than waiting through all the flights. In fact, we had suggested that to Peggy in the first airport of the day, but she had assured us that if we jumped ship, or plane as it were, that our luggage would not be loaded onto the flight in Chicago and would never get to St. Louis, because if they couldn’t match up our luggage to us, they wouldn’t load it. Now, everyone who’s ever had luggage lost in the airline system knows that this sounded wrong, but the more we debated with Peggy, the more adamant she, and her fellow agent, were that if we didn’t do all the flights our luggage would be trapped in Chicago. If we had continued to debate we might never have made our plane at all.
We told all this to Barry and Becky, and they were puzzled, and didn’t agree with what we’d been told. In fact, our luggage was happily in the system and would eventually end up in St. Louis, it was only the two of us that were not making the new computer system happy. We were not supposed to be there.
We could wait for nearly four hours in Moline, then fly to Chicago, and have thirty minutes to make our connection. How many of you have seen the movie Home Alone? Do you remember the scene where the family goes running madly through the airport to make their plane? We think that someone at O’Hare International Airport decided that must be part of everyone’s experience in Chicago, because they are infamous for last minute gate changes, and especially for just putting your arriving plane and your connecting plane too damn far away to make at a reasonable pace. Our record in O’Hare is four gate changes for one flight. The chances of making a connection in Chicago in less than forty-five minutes is slim. So, we could wait forever in Moline, and then still miss our last chance to get home in Chicago. Or . . . We could rent a car and flee.
Through the grace and kindness of the wonderful people in Moline we were able to rescue our luggage, rent a car, and start driving for home. Jon and I were almost giddy with just being in charge of our own fate without the new computer system, or misinformed ticket agents, or pilots with too many hours, derailing our trip home.
We put on the album Avengers Assemble, cranked it up and drove towards St. Louis. Jon and I hadn’t been on a long drive just the two of us in years. We talked about the movie, The Avengers, and how much we loved it. We discussed favorite parts, and that maybe seeing it again on the big screen would be fun. We talked about comic books, where Jon is by far the expert. I asked how much of the movie matched the comics. He said, it’s closest to the Ultimates. We talked about birds that we saw as we drove, and that’s my area of expertise. The male red-wing black birds had set up their breeding territories along the road, so that there were red-wings set up every dozen yards, or so. The roadside ditches in the Quad City area of Illinois must be prime territory, because I’ve never seen so many of them so close together outside of a marsh. We saw a peregrine falcon zipping beside the road. Killdeers, our inland plover, flew like small falcons themselves. Jon and I talked in a way that we have almost from the first time we met. We talked other movies, comics, myth, birds, wildlife, mountains, and I read him bits of what I’d written on the plane. Even with bathroom breaks, and stops for food, we beat the flight we were originally scheduled on into St. Louis, and it was a lot more fun than waiting in airports for hours, and then flying home. Modern air travel is great and makes a quick weekend getaway possible, but sometimes a good old fashioned road trip is just the better way to go. Hmm . . . Maybe my Mustang needs to strectch her wheels soon?